Yesterday I had a heated twitter debate with porn star Johnny Anglais about the merits of Holocaust movies. Really.

How it started was that I wrote a blog post in August about porn star Johnny Anglais and his love of the Jews. I called him out for naming Schindler’s List as his favorite movie, which struck me as creepy. Johnny responded in a comment, and then yesterday we had a long tweet debate about this issue. I will spare having to click back and forth from my twitter account to his by printing the whole thing below.

JA: @Tefox Thanks for your criticism of one of my favourite films, but make a silly comment, expect a response:… http://fb.me/yMcr2Rdc
TF: Hi Johnny. You make a good point, but I would maintain that SL is a film primarily about Jews suffering
While yes, there are themes of salvation in the movie, the message is that Jews can (only?) be saved by xtiansJA: I don’t remember much, if any, mention made to his religion. R u saying that the film should not have been made coz he was gentile?
TF: Of course not. I just think it’s problematic that so many Holocaust related films are about how great non-Jews areJA: And that certainly was never the msg I took from the movie. Do u have a problem with the fact that non-Jews helped Jews?
TF: Obviously, I commend righteous gentiles, it just seems strange that at a time of Jewish suffering, Hollywood chooses to elev8 those who weren’t Jewish, and not focus on the heroics of Jews themselvesJA: Well then I urge you to watch ‘Uprising’. A film that has probably overtaken SL in my rating.
I agree with you, in many ways, but equally, to dismiss the efforts of non-Jews during this time seems equally as narrow-minded.
TF: Haven’t seen Uprising or Defiance yet, but looking forward 2 seeing them both. ANd just added Schindler’s List 2 my netflix q
TF: So I can watch it again and see how it fares the second time around.
TF: I think it has the aggregate effect of desensitizing us to real suffering, and glorifies the horrors of that time and place

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